Things women do that disappoint their boyfriend

[pensmama87]

I have wondered sometimes if some of the talk about women “usurping” men comes as much from men who have difficulty imagining this concept. If one starts with the idea that someone must be in charge all the time, then of course a woman pushing for a change to that system must be trying to exert control over a man. That was certainly the sort of rhetoric I grew up with - the idea that in every relationship one person had to be in control at all times, and it was only a matter of whether that would be the man or the woman.

Yeah, and it’s a really, really exhausting way to live. Not to mention, hardly conducive to actual love.

 

[Anglewannabe]

Sorry, that made me laugh so hard I spit my coffee out…

Back to the regularly scheduled thread.

Call me naive, but I sincerely would like someone to explain the joke. Is it simply because I said ‘tooken’ instead of ‘taken’ ?

 

[Xantippe]

I have wondered sometimes if some of the talk about women “usurping” men comes as much from men who have difficulty imagining this concept. If one starts with the idea that someone must be in charge all the time, then of course a woman pushing for a change to that system must be trying to exert control over a man. That was certainly the sort of rhetoric I grew up with - the idea that in every relationship one person had to be in control at all times, and it was only a matter of whether that would be the man or the woman.

So, not a culture that recognized friendship?

 

[Xantippe]

Yeah, and** it’s a really, really exhausting way to live. **Not to mention, hardly conducive to actual love.

It’s so exhausting that not a lot else is going to wind up getting done.

 

[Sarcelle]

So to clarify, does this go both ways? Should a man not disagree with his woman in public?

According to him, a man can correct his wife in public because he is boss in the relationship.

 

[Sarcelle]

I was wanting to point out that it’s odd for a Catholic to have an idea of a husband as God-Emperor-Pope of his family when there is an actual pope in Rome, there’s a confessor to seek counsel from in case of serious marital disagreement, and Casti Connubii takes a non-legalistic approach to wifely submission:

“27. This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs.”

“28. Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time. In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family. But the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God, must always and everywhere be maintained intact.”

That’s Pope Pius XI.

Obviously, wifely submission is in Casti Connubii–but it doesn’t look like what you have been describing, which is more of a master-slave relationship.

A wife recognizes the authority of her husband because she recognizes that Jesus gave her husband that authority.

The husband along with the wife serve Christ together in the marriage. The husband is not Christ and he is not Pope, where married men are set-up like mini-tyrants over their own families.

This kind of thinking is more like Reformed Baptist type of thinking.

However, even Reformed Baptists do not say that wives do not even have the authority whether to discern their husband is abusing them or not.

Believe me, if someone was slapping me around, I do not need any authority to tell me that is abuse. I can determine that for myself.

 

[Xantippe]

Yeah, and it’s a really, really exhausting way to live. Not to mention, hardly conducive to actual love.

I’d like to emphasize that highly authoritarian families tend not to be very productive

Here’s a description of authoritarian parenting that probably has a lot of application to authoritarian marriage:

“Authoritarian parenting is a style characterized by high demands and low responsiveness. Parents with an authoritarian style have very high expectations of their children, yet provide very little in the way of feedback and nurturance. Mistakes tend to be punished harshly. When feedback does occur, it is often negative. Yelling and corporal punishment are also commonly seen with the authoritarian style.”

“Authoritarian parents have high expectations of their children and have very strict rules that they expect to be followed unconditionally. According to Baumrind, these parents “are obedience and status-oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation.””

"Rather than valuing self-control and teaching children to manage their own behaviors, the authoritarian parent is focused on adherence to authority.

“Instead of rewarding positive behaviors, the authoritarian parent only provide feedback in form of punishments for misbehavior.”

“They have lots of rules and may even micromanage almost every aspect of their children’s lives and behaviors.”

"4. They don’t give children choices or options.

“Authoritarian parents set the rules and have a “my way or the highway” approach to discipline. There is little room for negotiation and they rarely allow their children to make their own choices.”

“6. Authoritarian parents don’t trust their children to make good choices.”

“7. They are not willing to negotiate.”

“Because authoritarian parents expect absolute obedience, children raised in such settings are typically very good at following rules. However, they may lack self-discipline. Unlike children raised by authoritative parents, children raised by authoritarian parents are not encouraged to explore and act independently, so** they never really learn how to set their own limits and personal standards.”
**
“This can ultimately lead to problems when the parental or authority figure is not around to monitor behavior.”

Uh oh!

verywell.com/what-is-authoritarian-parenting-2794955

A peculiarity of hard core submission as a system of belief is that the wife is granted less freedom of action than tween and teen children in authoritative (not authoritarian homes).

 

[DarkLight]

It’s so exhausting that not a lot else is going to wind up getting done.

To be quite fair, I think very few couples lived out the rhetoric that was preached, at least where I grew up. Marriages tended to be in practice much more egalitarian than was spoken of.

The big danger, I think, was that people wouldn’t recognize abuse when it did happen. There are many things a husband can do with little violence, most especially if he is the sole income earner. (And abuse tends to escalate, starting with tearing the victim down psychologically so they’re ready to accept the physical when it comes.)

 

[macstar]

If he abuses this power and she is not married yet, she can break off the engagement if it is a big deal.

In fundamental Protestant thinking, this would never happen as the fiancé (male) has NO authority over his fiancée (female) until they are married. She is overseen by her father and answers to him, and she is protected by her father especially in instances like this. A fiancé who does this has no place in usurping her father’s authority and it is seen as calling the shots in his future father-in-law’s household, a huge faux pas. An engagement would likely be broken very quickly.

 

[Xantippe]

To be quite fair, I think very few couples lived out the rhetoric that was preached, at least where I grew up. Marriages tended to be in practice much more egalitarian than was spoken of.

That’s a very interesting point–that even in Protestant circles where hard core wifely submission is preached, it isn’t actually how normal, productive people run their families.

Functional, productive couples have a lot more room in their relationship for give and take.

(By the way, NonTimendum, is there a Mrs. Timendum, or is this just all theory?)

 

[Xantippe]

**In fundamental Protestant thinking, this would never happen as the fiancé (male) has NO authority over his fiancée (female) until they are married. **She is overseen by her father and answers to him, and she is protected by her father especially in instances like this. A fiancé who does this has no place in usurping her father’s authority and it is seen as calling the shots in his future father-in-law’s household, a huge faux pas. An engagement would likely be broken very quickly.

That’s a very good point.

 

[heidi_storage]

There’s only one Christ, dude. This “husband is the absolute authority” BS is straight out of the garbage marriage manuals that psychopaths like Michael Pearl are given to writing.

Not once in the entire New Testament did Jesus imbue married men with the authority you claim they have. That idea crops up maybe three times in the writings of Paul, where he says just as many times that husbands and wives should be subordinate to EACH OTHER out of respect for Christ, and not deny each other their rights.

Is the post so different from the very text of 1 Corinthians 11:3, or from Ephesians 5:22-24? (Ephesians 5:21 is talking about Christians in general, not about the married relationship.)

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Is the post so different from the very text of 1 Corinthians 11:3, or from Ephesians 5:22-24? (Ephesians 5:21 is talking about Christians in general, not about the married relationship.)

No - Paul was definitely talking about the marital relationship. He says later in the text that “the husband’s body belongs not to himself, but to his wife,” and vice versa. Kinda rules out the patriarchal authority model that fundies love to toot.

 

[Xantippe]

Is the post so different from the very text of 1 Corinthians 11:3, or from Ephesians 5:22-24? (Ephesians 5:21 is talking about Christians in general, not about the married relationship.)

Anything that applies to Christians generally applies also to Christians who are married to each other. So, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” applies to husbands and wives, too.

Likewise, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” also applies to husbands and wives.

I think it’s a mistake to assume that the only verses relevant to husbands and wives are the ones specifically about husbands and wives, when there’s a whole lotta New Testament in addition to that.

 

[heidi_storage]

Anything that applies to Christians generally applies also to Christians who are married to each other. So, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” applies to husbands and wives, too.

Likewise, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” also applies to husbands and wives.

I think it’s a mistake to assume that the only verses relevant to husbands and wives are the ones specifically about husbands and wives, when there’s a whole lotta New Testament in addition to that.

Sure. But people love to use Ephesians 5:21 to negate what follows. I think this is incorrect.

 

[Xantippe]

Sure. But people love to use Ephesians 5:21 to negate what follows. I think this is incorrect.

Think of it as providing an explanatory umbrella for what follows.

The thing is, there’s a lot of submit-submit-submit in the NT, and it’s not just husband-wife–it’s also slaves and masters, children and parents, populace and government.

See 1 Peter 2:

“13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. 17 Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”

“18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing. 19 For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God’s approval.”

Interestingly, there tend to be clusters of submission verses (for example Ephesians), and submission is not simply a husband-wife thing with the wife doing all the submitting, but an essential feature of the Christian life for every Christian.

Also, as I’ve pointed out before, the fact that St. Peter and St. Paul preached submission to the civil authorities but were often in trouble with the civil authorities (in fact both were executed by the authorities) does hint at the possibility that submission does not mean do everything exactly the way the person in authority wants. Or else, why were the Early Christians often in so much trouble with the law? Virtually all of the apostles are said to have been martyred.

 

[EasterJoy]

How to avoid “emasculating”
You avoid being rude or vulgar and never name-call or express contempt, since rudeness is gives him a thin line of response that is both dignified and charitable. You instead control yourself like a lady so he can treat you like one without embarrassment or duplicity.
You never disapprove of his choice or preference by implying it is a choice that is OK for a woman but not a man.
You let him make decisions that are his to make as a matter of course; you don’t tell him what to do when he has not asked for advice.
You do not presume to choose friends for him, but only for yourself.
You do not nag him and you especially do not take his mother’s side when she does.
You don’t marry him if you don’t respect his judgment.
You do not treat him like a fixer upper or a rescue puppy.

 

[NonTimendum]

However, even Reformed Baptists do not say that wives do not even have the authority whether to discern their husband is abusing them or not.

Believe me, if someone was slapping me around, I do not need any authority to tell me that is abuse. I can determine that for myself.

Didn’t say that.

 

[NonTimendum]

There’s only one Christ, dude. This “husband is the absolute authority” BS is straight out of the garbage marriage manuals that psychopaths like Michael Pearl are given to writing.

Not once in the entire New Testament did Jesus imbue married men with the authority you claim they have. That idea crops up maybe three times in the writings of Paul, where he says just as many times that husbands and wives should be subordinate to EACH OTHER out of respect for Christ, and not deny each other their rights.

You mean when St. Paul said that wives should submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ?

 

[NonTimendum]

No - Paul was definitely talking about the marital relationship. He says later in the text that “the husband’s body belongs not to himself, but to his wife,” and vice versa. Kinda rules out the patriarchal authority model that fundies love to toot.

So do husbands have to love their wife like Christ loves the Church?